


Negative Space

by standbygo



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Art, Drawing, First Kiss, First Time, Forgiveness, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, Nudity, Podfic Available, Post-Season/Series 04, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:47:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23673331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbygo/pseuds/standbygo
Summary: John takes a drawing class, but drawing Sherlock has unexpected results.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 185
Kudos: 805
Collections: Sherlock Author Showcase 2020, Sherlock and John Stories that Ease the Soul, To remember and cherish





	Negative Space

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ANNUNNAKI](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANNUNNAKI/gifts).



> This is from a prompt on the Facebook Johnlock group - Angel, thank you for the idea!
> 
> Many thanks to MissDavisWrites for her beta-ing skills.
> 
> This is dedicated to all the wonderful fanartists out there. Thank you for everything you do.

_Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved._

\- _Alain de Botton_ _  
_ _  
  
_

“Let me summarize,” Ella said, her voice as calm and neutral as ever. “You’re living with Sherlock again, and working with him, on cases.”

“Yes,” John said. His mouth curved into a smile at the thought of it.

“And you do some locum work at the clinic.”

"Not a lot, just enough to keep my hand in, but yes.”

“And you’ve got Rosie.”

Now John found himself grinning broadly. “Yes. After a rough start, I find myself rather liking fatherhood.”

Ella smiled back, just a flicker. “That’s good. But you’re saying that you’re still… restless?”

John shifted in his chair. “I can’t quite put my finger on it. But yeah. Like I’m missing something. I don’t understand it.”

“May I make an observation?”

“Sure.”

She uncrossed her legs, crossed them the other way. “All of those things are about other people. Outwardly focused.”

John frowned. “What do you mean?”

Ella counted off on her fingers. “Obviously you must be focused on Rosie while you are parenting her. While at the clinic, you are focused on your patients. While investigating cases with Sherlock, you are focused on the case, or Sherlock, or the police, or the victim.”

“But I enjoy those things,” John said. “Each one of those things makes me happy and fulfilled. Why isn’t that enough?”

“Everything you do is about others. What are you doing for just yourself?”

“I – oh.”

“It’s not selfish to do things that are just for yourself. In fact, it’s very useful in terms of recharging your mental energies, especially for people like you, in helping professions. For instance, you said Sherlock plays violin? That’s what he does.”

“Huh.” John was still trying to get his head around the concept, and was a bit surprised at himself that he was finding it so difficult.

Ella smiled, quite briefly. “Now coming here, that is doing something for yourself. But I’ve noted that most of what we work on are your relationships with other people: your father, your sister, your late wife. It’s very difficult to work on just you.”

“Okay,” John said slowly. “How do I do that though? I haven’t the first clue.”

“Some people go back to school, get the education that they always wanted to get but couldn’t due to circumstances. Some people go to the gym. Some people take dance lessons.”

John had a sudden, brief memory of Sherlock teaching him to waltz, and shook his head. “To be honest, I can’t imagine myself doing any of those things.”

“Those were just examples. Can you think of something you like to do, perhaps something you did as a child, that you weren’t able to continue for whatever reason? Take a moment and think.”

John sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. He remembered playing rugby, and being a Boy Scout for one completely disastrous year.

Then another memory poured into his mind: one of his teachers catching him doodling over his notebook. Instead of scolding him, she raised her eyebrows and said, “This is quite good, Johnny.” She had sent a note home with him, suggesting that Mr. Watson enroll John in art classes at the local community centre.

John’s father had screwed up the note and thrown it in the fire, and gave John a thrashing for expressing an interest in such a ‘pansy’ thing as drawing.

John opened his eyes. “I liked to draw,” he said.

**

He found an adult education school with a beginners’ art class fairly easily, but it took him a few days to get the courage to actually go in and register. He assumed he would be lumped in with a bunch of twenty-year-old women who would throw pitying looks at the slightly-past-middle-aged man who wanted to draw. To his relief, the first night revealed that there were a number of people his age, and even a few men.

The teacher, Mrs. Roshni, was about ten years older than John, with salt and pepper hair in a neat bob. John wondered what Sherlock would interpret from the callouses on her hands; what John could tell immediately was that she was a good teacher who was quite happy to be teaching art to adults at night school.

“This is not a photography class, and I’m not going to teach you how to draw something with the accuracy of a camera,” she said at the first class. “Drawing is not about reproducing what is in front of you, but about bringing it to life on the page. In the hands of the right artist, art comes to life not in the lines you draw, but in the negative space between the lines.”

There were many puzzled faces around the room at that proclamation, but John somehow, intrinsically understood.

After an initial lesson on sketching, their first assignment was to draw an object from around their house. John felt a bit of a fool sitting down in the lounge with his brand new sketchbook and pencils, staring at the fruit bowl. He had no idea that the bowl would be so… involved. After a while, however, he started having fun with the contrast between the lines of the bowl and the roundness of the apples, and he soon was lost in the long-forgotten joy of pencil on paper.

He was so absorbed he didn’t notice Sherlock come in until he heard him say, “…John?”

“Hey.” John found himself flushing in embarrassment. Why was he embarrassed? He was a grown man and could do what he liked in his own sitting room. “You were at Scotland Yard?”

“Yes. Paperwork,” Sherlock said with a scowl.

“Ugh.”

“Gregson is so tiresome,” Sherlock said. He took off his gloves but had still not taken his eyes from John’s sketchbook. In a voice that sounded uncharacteristically tentative and confused, Sherlock said, “John, are you… drawing?”

Again, John’s face went hot. “I’m taking a night class on drawing. I just…” He hesitated, not sure how to explain. “I just… I like to…”

“Watson asleep already? Anything on, I’m hungry,” Sherlock said, and for once John was grateful for Sherlock’s tendency to make a left turn in conversation. The Belstaff was whirled off and on the hook before John could blink.

“Paperwork makes me irritable and hungry, it’s _hateful_ ,” Sherlock said, and he grabbed an apple from the bowl and bit into it. Then he froze, staring at John with what could be considered dismay on anyone else’s face.

John laughed. “It’s all right, Sherlock. I already drew that one.”

**

The next lesson was on perspective, and John spent a few hours sitting at the window of the sitting room, staring down Baker Street toward Marylebone. First he sketched the basic lines of the street and buildings, then filled in the details of the windows and signs and cars. He wasn’t entirely pleased with the result, but satisfied enough.

When he was done, he closed his sketchbook and hid it in his room. He was sure Sherlock would find it eventually anyway, and he wasn’t quite sure why he was hiding it. Nevertheless he tucked it away under his mattress, hoping that Sherlock would respect his privacy for once.

Emboldened after a lesson on facial structure, he waited until Rosie was conked out on her nap, and drew a quick sketch of her. Her cheeks were still baby-chubby, and she occasionally wrinkled her brow in her sleep as though worrying about something. John could see Mary in the shape of Rosie’s ear and the curve of her lip. He wasn’t sure where her curly hair came from; his hair had always been dead straight, as had Mary’s.

This picture, too, was closed away in his book and tucked away.

“I don’t know why I’m hiding them,” he told Ella. “It’s not like I’m embarrassed about them, I’m quite pleased. But for some reason I’m uncomfortable with him seeing them.”

“We can’t control what we feel uncomfortable about, but we can try to delve into why,” Ella said. “Why do you think you don’t want Sherlock to see your work? What do you fear if he sees it? Are you afraid he’ll make fun of you?”

“No,” he said, slowly, and then more firmly, “No. He didn’t tease when he caught me with the fruit bowl. Perhaps he was being polite.”

“Forgive me,” Ella said with a small smile, “but from what you’ve told me about him, ‘being polite’ isn’t really something he does.”

“True. Ah, I don’t know.”

“Perhaps it’s not as extreme as that. You’ve told me of your father’s reaction when you were a child – are you concerned that Sherlock will minimize or ignore your personal interests and talents? Or perhaps you are hoping for praise that will not be forthcoming?

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Ella shifted, and considered him. “You praise him, don’t you? You said he appreciates that.”

“Yes, but that’s different.”

“Why?”

“Because he – well, he’s brilliant.”

“As are you, in different ways. He as a detective, you as a doctor… and perhaps even as an artist. Each of you have different gifts, and are talented in your own ways. Do you want his praise?”

John shifted uncomfortably. “I guess I was always taught that seeking praise was being selfish.”

“Very common from a childhood like yours. It’s okay to want acknowledgement, especially from your friends. Perhaps he wants to acknowledge your work, but can’t because you won’t allow him access to your work.”

“… I’ll think about it.”

John came home from the session to find Sherlock engrossed in an experiment in the kitchen, Rosie happily playing in her pen, and an empty picture frame on the coffee table.

“What’s this?” he said, holding up the frame. It was wood, with a satiny stain so dark it was nearly black.

“I thought we could frame that picture you did of Watson,” Sherlock said, without raising his eyes from the microscope. “It might go nicely above the fireplace, in that space to the right of the mirror, where the scarab beetles used to be before the fire.”

John blinked, his thoughts rocketing quickly from, _He snuck into my room again, the bastard_ , to _He likes the picture. He likes it. Enough to buy a frame and choose a place for it_.

“There’s a showing of the art at the end of the session,” John said. “Displaying all the work that’s been done in the class, and that. I’ll probably show it there. But after, yeah.” A strange and unfamiliar sensation swept through him, and he understood why Sherlock straightened his spine a little bit whenever John praised him. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Sherlock took a gulp of tea without looking, and winced. “My tea’s gone cold.”

“I’ll put the kettle on,” John said, as he always did. 

But as he filled the kettle, something was different.

**

Apparently John had jumped the gun with his drawing of Rosie, as the teacher wanted to work her students up to portrait drawing. The week after the facial structure lesson, Mrs. Roshni tasked her students to first attempt a sketch from a photograph.

“Someone you don’t see every day,” she said. “I want you to try copying a portrait before trying to capture them in the flesh.” She wiggled her eyebrows with a wide, leering grin. “And I do mean flesh. Life classes are in two weeks.”

Several of the younger students flushed and giggled, but John shrugged. He was a grown man and a doctor and the flatmate of Sherlock Holmes: nudity didn’t fluster him.

He went home and went through some old photos. Fortunately – or unfortunately – there were a number of people in John’s life he didn’t see every day. He wasn’t the best at keeping up communication outside of a pint every once in a while. He settled on a picture of Harry, an old one. In it, Harry was clearly at a birthday party; he guessed she was eleven or so. Possibly it was her own birthday; he couldn’t remember. He settled down with the photo and began to draw.

They shared the same jawline, inherited from their father, but Harry’s was softer than John’s, and without the cleft chin. She hadn’t been blessed with the Watson nose; instead it was more aquiline, like their mother’s. He remembered Harry pushing her fingertips into her cheeks as a teenager, trying to create a dimple like her friend Saoirse’s. 

He was filling in her hair with circular motions of his pencil when he realized when he had seen those contours before. All at once he saw Rosie reflected in Harry’s face – the jawline, the nose, and the curly, white-blonde hair.

He finished the picture of Harry, and laid it next to the picture of Rosie. He looked at the two pictures for a long time.

Then he sighed, picked up his phone, and dialed.

“Hey, it’s me,” he said. “Yeah, I – I know. It’s been a while. You okay?”

**

The next assignment from Mrs. Roshni was to attempt a portrait from life – someone that they knew. “Make sure to ask permission – aside from issues of consent, asking permission means that the person will stay still for you!” Mrs. Roshni said.

He asked Mrs. Hudson, who giggled and blushed and agreed, but did look slightly put out when John explained that, for his present purposes, she should keep her clothes on for her sitting. He hoped desperately that she would never mention the idea again.

She still sat happily, a cup of tea in front of her, her chin resting on her hand. For the most part the finished result was all right, but John wasn’t content with how he’d drawn her mouth. That was the one part of her she could not seem to keep still.

He kissed her on the cheek to thank her, and promised her the original after the class show. He went back upstairs and started work on the painstaking process of cleaning up – transforming the sketch to a finished piece.

Sherlock arrived home after nine. He said nothing but left a vapour trail of indignation behind him as he went to his room and returned in his pajamas and his favourite blue silk robe. John knew this meant a Level Seven strop – well past the help of offers of food or tea, but not yet at the point of stealing John’s gun.

“What happened?” he said.

Sherlock was quiet for so long John assumed he hadn’t heard, or had decided to ignore him. A full five minutes later, Sherlock startled him by muttering, “She turned herself in.”

“What, that woman that poisoned her boss?”

“Yes,” Sherlock hissed. “It’s so _boring_ when they turn themselves in.”

John looked up at Sherlock. He had folded one leg up and half turned, leaning one arm over his knee and his chin on his arm. His face had momentarily lost the creases of anger and was soft, younger, sad. His hands suddenly itched to capture it.

“Sherlock, don’t move,” John said without thinking.

Sherlock froze, his eyes widening. John realized what Sherlock thought – that John was warning him of imminent danger.

“It’s all right, I just – can I draw you, Sherlock? Is that – is that all right?”

A line formed between Sherlock’s brows, the line that appeared when Sherlock was confused. Just as suddenly, it vanished.

“Yes. All right.”

John turned a page in his sketchbook and grabbed his pencil before his brain talked him out of this. The rough lines of Sherlock’s head, his limbs and the chair; then filled in the folds of the housecoat, the wrinkles of the leather of the arm of the chair, and finally the details of Sherlock’s face – cheekbones, brow, lips, the slant of his eyes, the shape of his nose. John had never noticed the fine lines fanning out from the corners of Sherlock’s eyes before, and he wondered how recently they had appeared.

Lost in the page and the image he was creating there, John didn’t know how much time had passed until he heard a sleep-sigh from Rosie on the monitor. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was past midnight, and Sherlock had been holding his pose for nearly two hours.

“Oh – thank you, Sherlock – you can – go ahead, relax. Thank you.”

Sherlock blinked, then untwisted himself and faced forward in his chair. John thought that he should be stiff and aching from being so still for so long, but Sherlock simply rolled his shoulders and stood.

“Good night, John.”

He swept off to his room, leaving John in doubt about whether Sherlock had been honoured or annoyed by the request.

**

John woke in the middle of the night, sweating and gasping. When he had slowed his racing heart, he turned on the light, knowing that there would be no more sleep for him tonight.

He rubbed his face with his hands, hard, as if that could erase the memory of the dream. It was a dark and cold dream, with hard floors and unforgiving steel doors, the stench of death, and cruel laughter. His fist ached with remembered pain. Sherlock at his feet, looking up at him, blood falling down his face.

John heard himself whimper, and stuffed his fist in his mouth to stop it. Then he saw his sketchbook on his bedside table and grabbed for it as a drowning man would grab at a lifejacket.

Fast, fast, he had to get it down fast, get it out of his head and onto the paper. The angles of Sherlock’s face, so different from the softness it had earlier that evening – now appearing on the page, gaunt and sharp with starvation and neglect. Greasy hair, unkempt and scraggly beard. Lips cracked and bleeding; his eye socket darkening into a yellow and purple bruise; a rill of blood tracking from his nostrils down his mouth to his chin. John’s hands which had once caused this damage now raced to capture the details of the dream and from the memory. Accuracy was necessary, the minute details shouting their accusations to John. But what John most needed to capture was the look in Sherlock’s eyes: looking up at John, pleading, aching, mourning. But not fear. Not fear, but with something else that John was afraid to name.

It was dawn before he was satisfied. Then he ripped the picture out of the notebook and folded it up carefully, put it in his coat pocket.

Later that day, he walked into Ella’s office. As soon as the door was shut, he took the paper out of his pocket and handed it, still folded, to Ella.

“I need to talk about this,” he said.

**

His head was still buzzing from his session with Ella when he arrived at art class. He knew there was sizeable work ahead of him to do, but he already felt stones lighter.

He was momentarily surprised that the room had been reorganized, with easels arranged in a circle around a small dais. Then he remembered that the first life drawing class, the first with a live model, was tonight.

Students were taking their places around the room, sharpening their charcoal, chattering lowly in various levels of nervousness.

“D’you think it’ll be a man or a woman?” whispered Bea. “I hope it’s not a man, I’d _die_ of embarrassment.”

“Mrs. R said it was a woman,” Teri said.

“Front row for me, then,” said Keith in his loud voice that sounded like he thought he was in a pub. John had taken an instant dislike to him on the first night – it seemed that Keith was less there to learn about art but had thought that the class would be a great place to find dates.

“The closer the better,” Keith continued, grinning at John. “Get a look up her minge.”

“Do that and you’ll regret it,” John snapped.

Keith pouted. “Just joking.”

“No one’s laughing, mate,” John said grimly, throwing a bit of Captain Watson into his voice.

Keith glared at him, but when he eventually turned away, Keith found that the women of the class had all taken up the front row, glaring darts at him. The look of dismay and embarrassment on his face made John hastily stifle a giggle. Teri winked cheekily at him, and he winked back.

Mrs. Roshni bustled in, and John, Keith, and the other participants took their places. “All right everyone? Charcoal ready? Now. Remember to check your perspective, don’t worry about perfection at this session, just rough in your model. Watch for shadow and light. It’s all about the lines and the negative space. Any questions? Right, let’s get on. Amy?”

From a side room came a woman, barefoot and wearing a rather homely terrycloth robe. She was in her mid-40s, rather thick in the middle, with a cascade of loose, red, wavy hair. She stepped up to the dais and sat on the chair there. Keith made a disappointed sound, and John was about to kick him in the shin, but Mrs. Roshni fixed Keith with a glare that was far more effective in shutting him up.

“Pose.”

The model untied and shrugged off her housecoat, immediately moving into a casual lounging position. She had no shyness in her body, no sense of timidity of being naked in front of a bunch of strangers. There was a brief intake of breath from the class.

“Draw. Five minutes.”

There were a number of sharp gasps. They weren’t expecting such a short period of time to do their work. Mrs. Roshni jerked her chin towards their easels, and the protests died.

John squared himself to his easel and took a deep breath. Then he began to draw.

**

“John, your progress has been a pleasant surprise for me,” Mrs. Roshni said. She was giving John his mid-term evaluation, so the two of them were sitting together in the empty classroom, John’s works to date scattered over the table. “You had natural talent on the first day, but it’s been nice to see how much you’ve improved upon that.”

“Thanks,” John said. He could feel his face redden; it was still difficult for him to receive praise.

“For instance, I see great improvements in perspective between the first exercise – your fruit bowl – and the life class last week,” she said, pointing at each. “I’d like you to go back and do the fruit bowl again, with what you’ve learned, see what is different for you.”

“Right, okay.”

Her finger tapped on the picture of Rosie. “I think your specialty is portraits, however. This is your daughter?”

“Yes.”

“She’s lovely. I assume you drew her while she was sleeping because she’d never stay still otherwise?”

“She’s toddling, so – yeah.”

“I have five grandchildren, I understand. Challenge yourself next – try drawing someone while they’re moving, going about their day. Capture their sense of movement. All right? Now, I also like this one of your – mother?”

“Landlady, actually.”

“Nice attention to detail – her wrinkles, birthmarks, and so forth. See if she’d consent to a study of just her hand, then really focus in, as much as you can. Also watch the shading with portraits, you can really emphasize the third dimension if you get the shading right. Look at da Vinci’s anatomy drawings to get a sense of what you should look for.”

John scribbled down the instructions in his notebook. He had been sure to turn to a new page in his book to ensure Mrs. Roshni didn’t see his notes on the triple murder he had taken earlier that day.

“Now.” Mrs. Roshni pulled the portrait of Sherlock toward her. “I need to scold you a bit – it’s a bit unfair to the other students, using a professional model when the assignment was to draw someone at home.”

John blinked at her. “But – he’s not a professional model. That’s my flatmate.”

“Really?” Mrs. Roshni peered down at the picture again. “I thought, with his poise and those cheekbones that… you sure he’s never posed?”

“Quite sure,” John said, half-laughing.

Her mouth twisted, grinning at herself. “Do you think he’d ever consider…?”

“I very much doubt that.” There was no way he would tell Sherlock that his teacher had mistaken him for a professional model. There’d be no living with the vain git. 

“Hm. Well, that explains something.” She pulled out John’s sketches from the life class again. “Technically, these are excellent, but the other ones – the portraits of your family and friends – they just jump off the page. This is clearly Amy, but she doesn’t really jump, you see? I couldn’t figure out why this one,” she pointed at Sherlock, “was so vivid, and Amy wasn’t. But I was assuming he was a model and you didn’t know him. Clearly you draw the people you love better.”

“He’s just my flatmate.” John said it on reflex, suddenly realizing that he didn’t even think before saying it now. Why? She hadn’t said anything about them being together, as a couple. Why was he still reacting like this?

Mrs. Roshni fixed him with an inscrutable look that would have looked at home on Sherlock’s face. “Subjects that you know well, then. My point is, try to capture that vitality with subjects you don’t know personally.”

John looked at the picture of Rosie, of Mrs. Hudson, of Sherlock, and then of the model, and saw that Mrs. Roshni was right.

**

“My, uh,” John said, then rallied. “My teacher liked the picture I did. Of you.”

“Mmm,” Sherlock said. He was back at the kitchen table, working at the microscope. He didn’t look up.

“She thought that…” John was about to say and lost his courage. “She thought that it was very good.”

“Good.”

 _Is he echoing me or is he actually listening?_ “She told me to practice drawing people in motion. Moving.”

“I know what _in motion_ means, John.” Still not looking up.

John let the sarcasm pass. “So can I?”

“Can you what?”

“Draw you again.”

Now Sherlock looked up and stared at John. “You want to draw me again?” His voice was steady and neutral, his gaze sharp.

For what was probably the thousandth time since he’d met Sherlock, John wondered if he’d crossed some invisible line of propriety. If there was something that was too much to ask of a flatmate. If there was something that was too much to ask of Sherlock. On the other hand, how many flatmates go out to investigate murders together, before they’d even moved in?

He could ask Mrs. Hudson again, perhaps draw her as she baked. He could ask Molly, capture her timidity even while she worked on a corpse. But his fingers itched to capture Sherlock at work.

He raised his chin a little, determined and yet hoping that Sherlock wouldn’t ask why he wanted this. “Yes.”

Sherlock’s phone trilled, and he broke eye contact with John to look at it.

“It would appear you have your wish, John,” he said. “Lestrade has a case. Get your notebook. And ask Mrs. Hudson to sit with Watson, would you?”

**

Sherlock was darting, nearly dancing around the body. John had filled ten pages with sketches so far, and his hand ached around the pencil, but he just couldn’t satisfactorily capture Sherlock’s movements, the swirl of the coat, his hands pointing and gesturing. He was valiantly ignoring Donovan’s odd looks at him; he had explained to Lestrade what he was doing, that he was taking a class, earning a clap on the shoulder and a ‘Good on ya, mate,’ from him, but he had said nothing to Donovan. She hadn’t earned an explanation from him.

He looked up. Sherlock had stopped, and was staring down at the body as if hypnotized by it. The sudden absence of movement was as abrupt as a slammed door, and everyone in the room stopped, waiting for the flood of deductions. John looked to Sherlock as well, but no one knew Sherlock Holmes as well as John Watson did. John could see that Sherlock’s stillness was not the calm before the storm of answers to the mystery, but rather because Sherlock was stuck.

No one moved for a moment.

Then Sherlock strode over to John. John turned a page in his notebook, anticipating that Sherlock was about to ask him for his medical opinion, which he suspected was sought because Sherlock needed to stall for time to think.

Instead, Sherlock murmured into his ear, “Draw her.”

“What?” John hissed.

“There something there, something wrong, but I can’t see it, it must be there. Your drawing might capture it, so I can see through your eyes.”

“Are you serious, or are you taking the mickey?”

“I’m serious. Please, John.”

John looked at Sherlock and saw a rare earnestness in his eyes. “O-okay,” he said, and started to draw the body.

It was unnerving, drawing with Sherlock leaning over his shoulder. He felt terribly exposed, even more than when he was writing and Sherlock would stick his nose practically into the keyboard. He felt naked, and yet was unable to stop. He was distracted by Sherlock’s breath on his cheek, but kept his focus on his pencil and the lines of the corpse rising up on the page.

He was aware of the police in the room staring at them curiously, but nothing existed for him except the body, the paper, the pencil, and the heat of Sherlock along his side. He kept expecting Sherlock to tell him to hurry up, but he stayed remarkably silent, despite shifting restlessly.

John was sketching in the feet when Sherlock said, “Oh!”

Sherlock’s surge in energy poured over John. His pencil froze, but the rest of him went hot and cold in a wave.

Sherlock darted to the body and stared intently at its feet, and the deductions began to flow. John found himself unable to do anything but stare.

**

The students’ final art show was buzzing with people. The school had chipped in for cheap wine and some cheese and crackers in an effort to make the show appear more professional, but still, it was nice. John held his glass of wine, not really drinking it, and smiled and chatted with the other students and their families who had come. Teri’s wall was filled mostly with pictures of her beloved dog; Bea had several pictures but all with stilted, flattened perspective – John suspected her glasses were actually to blame. However, she was no Picasso. Keith had a few pictures of the nude model that actually weren’t too bad.

“I love this one,” said Janey, pointing at the picture of Rosie. “Is that your – niece?”

“Daughter, actually. Rosie.”

“Ah.”

Oddly, John was becoming used to the note of disappointment when women learned he had a child. Even more oddly, he wasn’t even offended any more.

Mrs. Roshni rescued him with a wry smile. “Are you going to join us again next semester, John?” she asked. “I think you should consider the portraits course next, you would do very well in it.”

“I’ll think about it,” John said. “I was also thinking about the-”

“Oh my God,” Mrs. Roshni said.

John blinked, and followed her dropped jaw and line of sight to the door. To his surprise, Sherlock had just swept in, leaving a sea of staring art students in his wake.

“That’s him, isn’t it? Your flatmate?” Mrs. Roshni said.

“Um, yeah.”

“Dear God. Did you ask him about the modelling? You didn’t say he was tall, too.”

Sherlock was walking around the displays, looking at each picture keenly but briefly, with occasional glances at the artist if they were standing nearby. John could recognize the look in his eye – that analyzing, deductive, slicing look. A couple of the students attempted to talk to him, but Sherlock would only hum in response and sweep on.

John was surprised that Sherlock had come. There had been a flyer with the date on Mrs. Hudson’s fridge, and perhaps Mrs. Hudson had told him about it, but she had already been and gone. It was quite possible that Sherlock had simply figured it out by the shoes John had put on that morning. John wasn’t surprised by such deductions any more – he had just thought Sherlock didn’t care enough about the whole thing to come.

Eventually Sherlock made his way around the room and had arrived at John’s little display. “Hello, John,” he said as he walked up, his face neutral and unsmiling.

John ignored his teacher’s whispered, “Dear God,” as he said, “Hey Sherlock. Sherlock, this is-”

But Sherlock had already turned away from John and Mrs. Roshni to look at John’s pictures. Even though he knew Sherlock had seen them before, he felt his face flushing with the embarrassment he still couldn’t explain or prevent. He found himself anxiously watching for Sherlock’s reactions.

For the most part, Sherlock’s expression was neutral, but for the darting eye movements of Sherlock’s deduction process. A tiny flicker of a smile appeared as he studied the picture of Rosie, but was gone almost before John could register it. His face betrayed nothing as he studied the portrait of himself, but it couldn’t have been John’s imagination that he looked at it longer than the others.

Suddenly Sherlock straightened and glanced around the room at the other students’ displays, then back to John’s. His brow knotted, and he turned, almost accusingly, to John. John was struck dumb by the look of confusion on Sherlock’s face, unusual and unfamiliar.

Then Sherlock stalked out of the room, leaving to the almost silent sound of an exhalation of breath from the students.

“Gracious,” Mrs. Roshni said. “What was all that about?”

“I have no idea,” John said, still staring at the door, still swinging shut after Sherlock.

**

John came home after the show, his pictures rolled and tucked under his arm. He was surprised to find Sherlock in the sitting room. He had lit the fire, but instead of sitting and reading, or in his mind palace, or curled up on the sofa in a strop, Sherlock was pacing around the room impatiently. When John entered, Sherlock strode up to him, looking down on him intently.

“Why were there no pictures of that woman in your display?”

John reared back in surprise, at the question and at Sherlock’s proximity; why did this suddenly feel like an interrogation? “What woman?”

“That woman! The secretary, with the Great Dane dog, and plantar fasciitis.”

“What?”

Sherlock closed his eyes impatiently. “The nude woman.”

“Oh, the model?” 

“Yes, of course,” Sherlock snapped. “All the other students had at least one amateurishly drawn picture of her, in various poses and perspectives. You’re clearly the most skilled artist there – it wouldn’t take much – but there were no pictures of her from you on display. Why?”

There was no other way to describe Sherlock’s tone but accusatory. John had no idea why this was so important and disturbing to Sherlock, but he had learned long ago that honesty was the way to go. “They weren’t as good. My teacher agreed. I couldn’t – There was something missing.”

“Show me.”

Lack of understanding of Sherlock’s purpose morphed into irritation and defensiveness. “You going to critique them, then?”

“I just want to see them.” Sherlock paused, and rolled his eyes minutely. “Please.”

John’s jaw jutted out mulishly, but he realized with a scowl that this might be the only way to figure out what Sherlock was on about. He yanked his book out of his bag, flipped through the pages until he found the sketches of the model, and shoved them into Sherlock’s hands. Immediately Sherlock’s eyes turned their sharp gaze onto the picture. After a moment, he looked up at John, and John was again struck by the confusion on his normally aloof expression.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Your teacher said it wasn’t good? Why?”

“Not that it wasn’t good, just that… not as good.”

Sherlock held the drawing aloft and shook it impatiently, almost accusingly. “This is still better than the other gawkish attempts I saw on display tonight.”

A flush worked its way up John’s neck – praise, and from Sherlock. Unqualified praise, even. What was happening?

“She said that – that my portraits were better if I knew the person. If I -” John swallowed back Mrs. Roshni’s exact words, “-if I knew them. Well.”

Sherlock looked at him for a long moment, then whipped away and resumed his frantic pacing. “I came to the art show tonight as an experiment,” Sherlock said. “I wanted to see if I could deduce from the picture as well as I do from life. The experiment, I thought, was a success. I looked at every single picture tonight, John. For each one I was able to deduce from them the details of the subject’s life, as if I was meeting them in person. I could even tell something about the artists themselves, which I confirmed with a look at them.”

“Okay,” John said. Only Sherlock would turn an amateur art show into an experiment in deductions.

“I could tell, for instance, that the woman with curly hair, the woman in her picture is her sister, that the sister has two children and is presently expecting twins, that they were estranged in their early twenties but are reconciled now. The older woman with all the pictures of the pug - the dog in the picture is geriatric and has arthritis, and she takes it swimming twice a week for pain relief. You see, John?”

“Brilliant.”

Sherlock's stream of words hiccuped for a moment, then he resumed as though John had said nothing. “I looked at yours, and it was easier, of course. I could tell that Mrs. Hudson had made gingerbread the afternoon you drew her. Rosie had been to the park with her playgroup and had gone down the slide by herself for the first time that day. And I could see in your drawings your great affection for Mrs. Hudson and your pride in Rosie.”

For a moment, John wondered what the point of this was – and then thought of what it might be. He licked his lips and took his courage in hand. “What could you see in the picture of you?”

He looked deep into John’s eyes, as though trying to bore through into his brain. John felt pinned into place, eviscerated, flayed.

Sherlock shoved the sketchbook into his hands and said, “Draw me.”

He broke eye contact and turned back to the centre of the room, sliding his jacket from his shoulders and hanging it on the back of the desk chair. John stood frozen for a moment, uncomprehending, then belatedly sprang into action, dropping his finished pictures on the coffee table and scooping up his sketchbook. There was a brief scrabble for pencils at the bottom of his bag. Then he sat in his chair next to the fire, and waited.

Sherlock looked at John in his chair, and his face was briefly softer and perhaps a little anxious, then turned to the door and locked it.

“It’s late,” Sherlock said. It was an explanation, but not really.

“Yes,” John said. “Sherlock-”

Sherlock held up an imperious hand. “Just – listen. And draw.” Was his hand shaking, just a little? “Please.”

John obediently opened his sketchbook to a fresh page, and sat, with his pencil poised.

There was a long moment of John staring at Sherlock, and Sherlock looking down at the floor. Then Sherlock’s hands went to the buttons on his cuffs. Once started, Sherlock’s hands were steady and certain and unhesitating, stripping away his shirt and draping it over his jacket. John’s eyes were drawn, as they always were, to the small, neat bullet hole scar on his chest.

Sherlock’s head turned to John but he kept his eyes down. “You asked what I saw when I looked at your picture of me. I saw – I saw a man with a secret.”

“Sherlock-”

Sherlock pressed his lips together, silencing John, then took a long breath. “I’ve been thinking since then, and I think – I think I don’t want to keep the secret anymore.”

Sherlock’s hands were still at his trouser line, his thumbs sliding back and forth, back and forth along his waistline, as if gathering courage. He seemed to decide, and his hands quickly undid the button and flies. Before John could take a breath, Sherlock had slid off his trousers, pants, shoes, and socks.

Completely nude, Sherlock looked at John for the first time since he had taken his jacket off. John’s mouth went dry.

“I never wanted to leave you,” Sherlock said.

“Sherlock-”

“Please, John,” Sherlock said, quietly. “Please. Just – draw.” He turned his back to John, and held his arms out to his sides.

The light from the fire flickered against Sherlock’s skin, highlighting the scars that crisscrossed his back. John sucked in a breath. He had had a glimpse of them before, back when he was caring for Sherlock after he was shot. Before he could say anything then, Sherlock had turned away as quickly as he was able and pulled a dressing gown over himself. John’s mind had been too full of grief and anger over Mary to press further.

Now he saw them all, fully displayed. They were twisted and silvered and pale, telling John that they must have happened a while ago, when Sherlock was away. But there was no mistaking the severity of the wounds. John’s hands were shaking now, but, as if in a dream, he began to draw.

“I had been backed into a corner, and Moriarty was using my vulnerabilities against me. I felt there was only one solution open to me, and I took it. But I realized later, when I came back, that the ramifications were greater than I had ever anticipated – that I had forever broken your trust in me.”

John’s pencil captured the long lines of Sherlock’s arms, his legs, his neck. The outline of the graceful arch of his back, marred by the chaos of the scars.

“When I returned, I resolved to do my best to repair the damage, to make amends to you. That meant being friendly with Mary. Taking you on cases. Helping with the wedding. Asking you – asking you to forgive Mary.”

John’s pencil stilled. Sherlock’s head turned slightly, and John realized that Sherlock believed that John was finished with his drawing. John glanced down – the sketch was finished, as much as a preliminary sketch could be finished. He turned the page. Sherlock nodded slightly, and turned around. 

For a moment, John had trouble remembering how to breathe. Sherlock was not normally a modest man, given his tendency for walking around in a sheet – though John suddenly realized that he hadn’t seen Sherlock do that since before his ‘death’. But now Sherlock was fully naked before him; thin and muscled, his long arms, legs and neck open to John’s eyes. His penis hung softly between his legs. Despite the strength evident in the breadth of Sherlock’s shoulders and the lean muscles in his thighs, all John could see was vulnerability. His eyes were drawn like magnets to the bullet hole scar on Sherlock’s chest; round, silvered and so innocuous, as if it had never been gushing blood, as if it had never caused Sherlock’s heart to stop. Sherlock’s stomach was trembling as he breathed.

“John,” Sherlock said.

John hummed absently in reply, still staring at Sherlock’s scar.

“John.”

John peeled his eyes upwards, away from the scar and the trembling stomach, up to Sherlock’s eyes. They were soft in a way he had never seen, and somehow even more vulnerable than the body below. It staggered John breathless for a moment.

“I need you to see me, John,” Sherlock said softly.

John swallowed hard, and found himself blinking back tears. “I see you, Sherlock,” he whispered.

“Then… draw.”

John lifted his hand and saw that the pencil was shaking in his hand. He took a deep breath, and another, and the pencil stilled. He started to draw.

He drew in absolute silence for a time; the only sounds were the fire popping and the rasp of John’s pencil against the rough paper.

“I thought of you every day while I was gone.”

Sherlock’s voice was low, but it startled John nonetheless.

“I realized how I had come to depend on you. Not just for The Work but for everything. To make me eat, to make me sleep, to ensure that my body didn’t collapse. To – to make me smile. Laugh. It became my driving force, my motivation while I was away – to return to you, to our life here. And I came back and I could tell that – not only was there Mary, but your eyes told me of the pain you had been in while I was away. I didn’t think of that – I didn’t know – I-”

The sketch book blurred, and John blinked hard until his vision resolved.

“And I decided that I – I needed to change. Be a better man. Show you that – I was capable of that. Of being that. Even though I knew that-”

Sherlock cut himself off, pressed his lips together. John’s pencil filled in the details of Sherlock’s face, his jawline, his throat with his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. The lines of his torso. The smooth, circular scar of a bullet, created by John’s wife, his dead wife.

“I have made so many mistakes, John. So many mistakes with the person who mattered most.”

John wanted to stop him, correct him, but he knew this was something Sherlock needed to say. ‘ _See me_ ,’ he had said. So John gritted his teeth together to keep the words in. Focused on the shape of Sherlock’s strong legs.

“And the greatest mistake of all was not telling you – not being clear to you – earlier. I should have said something. Anything.”

John willed his hand not to shake as he focused on Sherlock’s groin, drawing in the dark hair there, the soft testicles – and the penis that was slowly filling and hardening.

“And I know it’s too late now. I missed my chance. I’m sorry for that. Sometimes you’re looking at me, but you don’t _see_ me. But that’s all right. As long as you can – stay. Be near. I am grateful for every minute I have with you. That’s all I want.”

John’s pencil stilled again. He could barely see the page before him, gone blurry in the light of the fire and the impact of Sherlock’s words. Sherlock had bared his body and his mind, made himself vulnerable in every way, all so John would see him. How could he possibly respond to this?

In a moment, he knew. He knew how to respond, and it was so simple. He should have thought of it years ago. 

He carefully put the sketchbook down on the table and turned it to face Sherlock. Sherlock still stared at John for a second, then looked down at the page.

“What do you see now, Sherlock?” John asked quietly.

“Me,” Sherlock said. His voice was softer than John had ever heard it.

“Does this man still have secrets?”

“Some. But the important one is… said.”

“And what can you tell about the artist, Sherlock?”

Sherlock looked up at John, startled. Then he suddenly seemed to remember that he was naked, and that he had an erection. His hands flinched down to cover himself.

“It’s all right, Sherlock,” John said. He wanted to put his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, on his warm, bare shoulder, but it wasn’t right, not yet.

Sherlock had laid himself bare, and John needed to do the same.

In his wildest dreams, John had always imagined himself being nervous, his hands shaking when he and Sherlock would stand before each other like this. But to his surprise, his hands were steady and his voice calm as he reached for his top button on his shirt.

“I was a wreck when I was first back from Afghanistan. I was so lost. Didn’t know what to do with myself. But you knew that, didn’t you? You knew from the moment you laid eyes on me at Bart’s. And then I was running again, and laughing again, and it was all because of you.”

Sherlock’s eyes were wide as John shucked his shirt and threw it in the corner. John pulled his white t-shirt off, throwing it after his shirt, but paused, his thoughts turning inward.

“Then you went away. I’ve never felt so… hollow in all my life. Therapy didn’t help, drinking didn’t help, the hangovers _really_ didn’t help. I couldn’t feel anything. When Mary came along, she helped me remember how to feel again. But it wasn’t the same, not at all. Then you came back.”

His eyes went up to Sherlock’s again. Sherlock’s eyes were twitching all over the room – from John’s eyes to his rumpled shirt, to the scar on his shoulder, to his feet.

“Then I was feeling everything, all the time. Anger, joy, rage, happiness, everything, all at once. I couldn’t contain it. And it felt like – like ever since then, I’ve done absolutely everything wrong with you that is possible to do wrong.”

“John-”

“Don’t deny it, Sherlock. I know you don’t really have the family background to tell you that this is not the way to behave, but it isn’t. I should never have – I turned you away, and turned you away, and I hurt you over and over again. Mentally and physically.”

Sherlock seemed about to say something else, but John interrupted him by unbuttoning and pushing his jeans and pants off. He pushed the puddle of clothes aside with his foot, and faced Sherlock.

“It’s unforgivable, Sherlock, and yet you do. You keep forgiving me. And all you wanted… was for me to see you.”

Slowly, slowly, John knelt in front of Sherlock, looking up at Sherlock’s face, gone white with shock.

“I should have seen, I should have seen you loved me. You do, don’t you? I should have seen, because I love you. I love you so much, Sherlock. I see it now.”

He pressed his face into Sherlock’s belly, the belly that had trembled as John drew him. He sighed as the tears came from him, finally, tears soaking into Sherlock’s skin.

Then Sherlock’s belly was gone, Sherlock had knelt and had wrapped his arms around John, and they were kissing. Kissing hard and with tiny groans, arms and hands gripping at shoulders and backs and hair. Salt mingling on their faces, giving way to soft laughter of relief, relief of years of anger and fear and loss. Relief at how simple it was, after all.

Sherlock whispered into his ear, and John didn’t understand but nodded anyway. Then they were standing and pulling each other down the hall to Sherlock’s room.

Sherlock’s bed was soft, and the sheets were cool as they lay down, but quickly warmed to their blood heat. There was so much to explore, so much to touch, so much to see. John was happily drowning in Sherlock’s skin and hair, his hands on John’s body, John’s lips on Sherlock’s. They were pressed together, a soft writhing at first, building to something more primal and urgent. Sherlock came first, but his face gone ethereal with pleasure tipped John over the edge.

Their movements slowed but they did not part, even for a second. Joy and lassitude mixed in John’s blood as they kissed, slower and more softly, and soon he fell into sleep, his lips still against Sherlock’s.

**

When John woke, morning sun was trickling past the curtains into Sherlock’s room. They had both moved, John flipping onto his back and Sherlock further down the bed, but with one long arm over John’s chest. John spent several long minutes watching Sherlock’s peaceful face and the rise and fall of his breathing, but ultimately John’s bladder could not be argued with, and he extricated himself carefully.

He returned a few moments later, and stood in the doorway. He drank in the sight of Sherlock asleep, marveling at the miracle that this was, that he could simply slide back into bed with him. Or kiss him awake. A world of possibilities stretched in front of him.

Instead, he quietly walked back out to the sitting room and retrieved his sketchbook and pencils. Then he went back into the loo and took the small mirror off the wall above the sink. Silently he returned to Sherlock’s room and placed the mirror on Sherlock’s desk opposite the bed. Then he carefully slipped back under the sheets. Sherlock didn’t wake, but grumbled adorably and burrowed his face into John’s hip.

John opened his sketchbook to a new page. He wanted to capture this miracle, this amazing thing that had happened – John and Sherlock in bed, together. It would be a gift for Sherlock, when he woke.

He glanced up at the mirror, and down at Sherlock, and began to draw.

_End_

  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [(PODFIC) Negative Space](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29284242) by [ohlooktheresabee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohlooktheresabee/pseuds/ohlooktheresabee)




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